


A Private Little Life

by asuralucier



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Typical Everything, F/M, Gen, I gave the Survey Corps a drinking culture, Medieval Feminism, Petra grows up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, discussion of bodily fluids but not sexually, only really Petra/Levi if you squint, passing the bechdel test like a boss, some mysogynist language and attitudes, that means angst and death and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 21:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16354949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: The life and many deaths of Petra Ral. Canon-divergent AU.





	A Private Little Life

Petra Ral is thirteen when she starts to bleed “down there.” The blood gives “down there” a sort of womanly specificity where before “down there” had been lost to the world of girlish abstraction. It’s not so much of a surprise to her as it is an inconvenience. She pays less attention to her growing breasts -- although in the end, they don’t grow to be anything of note -- and more to the agonizing pain of her belly when the red red blood runs down there out of her cunt. 

It is Petra’s sister Beryl who teaches her the word _cunt_. Beryl is three years older than Petra and she’s left any sense of girlish softness behind. Beryl, unlike Petra who is just beginning, is all grown up. All grown up and ready to leave the stifling walls of their father’s house in a suburban district of Wall Rose; it’s not a bad district and is home to a budding university. Her father is a widower, for as long as Petra could remember, and he withers because of it, being alone. Beryl tells her that the bleeding won’t get better, but “you learn to live with it and to make do. I always think it’s what makes women stronger. The bleeding gives you a pain you always remember for later. Boys never remember their broken noses, do they?” 

Petra confessed that she knew next to nothing about boys and the fact that they tended to break their noses and not remember. 

Beryl just laughed, rubbing Petra’s face in her grownup-ness, “It doesn’t matter, Pebbles. What matters is that you’ll grow up, and take care of yourself now. You don’t need anybody.” Even though Beryl’s hand was pressed against against Petra’s forehead, a feeling suddenly seizes Petra, a dreading fear as thick as blood that Beryl is only pretending to be here with her, in a reality just slightly hidden under the veneer of this one, Beryl is actually very far away. 

 

Beryl Ral joins the military academy two days before Petra’s fourteenth birthday. She spends her birthday frowning at a piece of hard crumble cake and her father doesn’t say anything. 

 

When Petra is fifteen, two sullen faced members of the Scouting Legion visit her father’s house. A man and a woman, but the man stands about level with her with a severe haircut and the woman towers above both of them. Petra has been bleeding all day and the day before, but she puts on a brave face like a woman would, tells them to come in and offers them coffee.

“I don’t drink coffee.” The man says. 

“Levi, don’t be rude,” the woman chides, but in a strangely mannish way that fascinates Petra. “ -- I’ll take some coffee.” 

The kitchen is through to the back of the house, but if Petra leaves the door open, she thinks she can hear snatches of their conversation. 

“I don’t think Halle Ral is at home.” 

“Well, I’m not waiting around for him to come back.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” that was the woman, resigned and slightly beaten up. “We do need to get through the rest of these today, don’t we?” 

The man, Levi, says, “This one. This one is enough.” 

“So even you can go soft,” there’s an irony that doesn’t sit very well on the edge of the woman’s voice, “Interesting.”

“Don’t _do_ that,” the man gripes. “I’m not some fucking experiment you can fucking poke around.” 

“Watch your mouth, we’re guests in this house.” 

Petra fixes a single cup of coffee for the woman using the nice coffee grounds that they have tucked away for guests, although she had been allowed a cup for her birthday. She brings it out to the sitting room and the woman smiles indulgently at her, “Thank you, Petra.” 

“You know my name?” 

“Beryl talked about you,” the woman says. “All good things. My name is Hanji Zoe from the Scouting Legion. This is Levi.” 

The man doesn’t look at her.

Petra stays standing up, if only because she’s very aware that her knees might buckle if she bends without warning. “ -- The Scouting Legion?” 

Petra has heard about the Scouting Legion before, of course. But word around was that they were a harrowed group of unorganized hooligan soldiers that killed titans outside of the walls for sport. It was difficult for her to imagine her sister, the grown, womanly Beryl, to be in such disastrous company. They were, as the words further went, a showy egotistic bunch who never went anywhere without their personalized 3DMG gear, made out of chrome. The weight of Levi’s and Hanji’s equipment made the couch sag. 

“Beryl joined us three months ago,” Levi says. “She’d had great promise, great flexibility, despite having vertigo. One of the weirdest things I’d ever seen.” 

There’s nothing about the way Levi says “flexible” that leads Petra to believe that Levi viewed Beryl as anything other than a good soldier. The hard matter-of-factness of it all that’s attached to the man’s words seems to erase all of Beryl’s womanliness and reminds Petra of the time her sister educated her about her cunt. 

“...Where’s my sister?” 

Levi and Hanji exchange looks. It is Hanji who meets her gaze again, slightly sinister behind the glint of her glasses, “Where’s your father, Petra?” 

“He is at the university,” Petra says, her throat suddenly very dry. “He always works late.” 

Levi clears his throat and takes from his rucksack a folded, faded cloak bearing the Scouting Legion’s insignia. “This was hers. Take it. Put it somewhere safe.” 

Petra wants to ask after her sister’s body -- corpse, but something, a niggling voice at the back of her head tells her not to.The bleeding ache of her abdomen was replaced that day with a longing pain, settled in just behind Petra’s ribcage. 

 

“Get up,” a bubbling muddled voice says somewhere next to her ear. “Get _up_ , you fucking cunt. Scouting Legion piece of shit.” 

Petra wants to form the words “fuck you.” She’s the daughter of a university man, but hardly uneducated in the coarseness of daily life. But she can’t, and all that Petra can think about is the pain and when was the last time this stupid, stupid muddled man in front of her had broken his nose. All she has got to do is _punch his nose_. 

Petra swings, mostly blindly, and an iron grip’s got her wrist. 

“What’s going on here?” 

Petra recongizes the voice, just about, she thinks. 

“Is this what the Military Police do now? Punch out little girls? Why don’t you pick on someone you own size?” 

“Like who, you, shrimp?” 

Levi. She remembers now. It’s _Levi_ , surly, awkward, stunted Levi. None of those things are very nice to think about the man who is probably just about to save your life, but he didn’t save Beryl and really, Petra doesn’t have much to go on. 

“Go on, I guess I’m in a good mood today. Why don’t you fucking try me?” Levi says. 

Petra hears and feels, the crunch of a man’s bones and squeezes her eyes shut tight. The grip on her wrist loosens and instead the grip is at the back of her neck hauling her up. 

“Come on,” Levi tells her. “We’ve got no time for these shitheads.” 

 

So Petra joins the military too. First the academy, then the Scouting Legion. She doesn’t think about her father being even more alone. She does it for Beryl and not Levi, who she never expected to see again, except when she does. 

He even buys her a drink at a dingy bar that is usually a Scout filled hanging spot. He asks what she’d like and because Petra doesn’t take much to drink demurs and asks him to choose. He does and the bartender pours them small small glasses of dark colored rum, apparently a house secret. It’s sweet, but also bitter and Petra decides that she dislikes it. Then she orders another, and then another one after that. Having three drinks does not seem to change Levi’s morose expression. 

“I’m going to be as good as my sister,” Petra says. “I’m flexible and I’m not scared of heights. I’m not scared of fucking anything.” 

Levi makes a noise into the empty glass in front of him, “That’s good that you’re not fucking scared of anything. It’s the only way to live.” 

 

The first time they see a titan, Auruo shits his pants. Actually shits his pants due to losing total control of his bowels. It’s only afterwards, that the smell of his shit becomes despicably near them. In the moment, Petra thinks that they might all have done it -- that is, shit themselves, but it’s true what Beryl says even now, that boys don’t really remember.

She buys Auruo a drink when Erd won’t even sit near him (“Whew! Would you just -- the smell!”) 

“I almost did it,” she says. “I very nearly shit myself.” 

“Girls don’t do that,” Auruo says darkly into his beer. 

“Are you telling me you don’t think girls need to relieve themselves?” 

“...I don’t want to talk about this.” Auruo shifts uncomfortably on his stool. “I mean, Ma says it’s not polite conversation. Especially in the presence of a girl.” He says this, and then looks at Petra, as if she’s meant to agree and congratulate him on his fucking _politeness_. 

“I shit,” Petra says. She swigs her beer and slams the glass back down on the bartop, “I also have to squat to piss and my cunt fucking hurts once a month when it _fucking_ bleeds!”

“...Whoa.” Auruo holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t mean.” 

“Of course you don’t mean it,” she finds herself suddenly, absolutely furious at him. “You can’t mean anything when you don’t know jack shit, you _shit_ yourself.” 

Half of the bar is now staring at them and Auruo’s expression is stuck somewhere between horror and embarrassment. His cheeks are red and he does ultimately nothing, and just fumes into his beer. Then he says, “I’m going now.” 

Petra asks for another beer and the barman pulls her one and tells her it’s on the house. 

“...Did that make you feel better?” says another voice near her elbow. Petra whirls, and finds Hanji Zoe asking after a whiskey. “ -- I’ll get you one if you’d like. It’s better than Levi’s girly rum that he likes --” she pauses, looks at Petra’s face and smirks in a knowing, but not mocking, way, “And yes, I know about that.”

“About what?” 

“Nothing, just Levi’s rum. Do you want some whiskey or not?” 

“I’ve never had one.” 

“You’re missing out -- hey, bar man. Make that two.” Hanji holds up two fingers and passes over coins when the drinks appear in front of them once again in those tiny glasses. “Let’s toast to something. To Auruo fucking shitting his pants and you holding yourself together? I do hope that his ma taught him how to wash properly. Or else he’d be stinking up the barracks for days.” 

Whiskey is not rum. Whiskey hurts all the way down her throat, and Petra remembers. 

 

“Do you ever think about it?” 

Petra finds herself walking with Hanji back to her quarters. She’s never seen a commanding officer’s quarters before. Hanji’s room is large sort of, with a bed, a desk, and some sort of strange metal apparatus that Hanji dismissively informs Petra that she “is still working on. But with any luck I think this one might be it. I sometimes get one of those feelings.” 

“Oh.” 

“Anyway, you were asking me something. Do I ever think about…?” 

“Bleeding. The pain, I guess.” 

“Sometimes,” Hanji fixes her with a searching look. “Did you like the whiskey?” 

There’s a lot of whiskey swimming around in Petra’s head and her general system, so she nods, “Yeah. I think so.” 

“Then this is childsplay. Bear with me one minute. Here, sit on the bed. I don’t want you to faint on me or anything.” 

Petra sits, and the next thing she knows, Hanji is holding a cup of something strong-smelling to her lips. “This smells like piss. You better not be playing a bad joke on me, Section Commander.” 

“Close, but no. It’s vinegar. Wouldn’t it be more convenient if we all pissed vinegar?” 

“Would it?” 

Hanji shrugs, “Drink. And we’re off duty, Petra. Let’s leave Section Commander at the proverbial door. Enjoy our private lives -- as best we can.” 

“What will the vinegar do?” 

“Makes everything bearable.” Hanji says. “Well, not everything, but.” 

 

Then life -- as only life can -- plays a cosmically bad joke and Erd and Auruo are dead. Erd is even chomped into two by the female titan. Erd has a wife and a baby girl. Auruo has a grandmother. Petra goes with Levi to their houses and Levi stands there with an impassive face carved from stone as Auruo’s grandmother hurls insults at them and chases them out of her house. 

Afterwards, Petra asks him, “Do you want to come home with me? You could at least try some nice coffee.”

“It’s been two years, what makes you so sure your old man will still keep nice coffee?” 

“He’s a creature of habit,” Petra says. “And I’m sure he has guests.” 

Petra gets into the house just fine. The spare key is still nestled where she expects it in the thorniest part of the plant that’s more or less dead beside the door and lets herself in the house with Levi trailing behind. In the kitchen, she finds the nice coffee and some vinegar. 

“Don’t tell me you’re going to drink that.”

“It helps,” Petra says, uncapping the vinegar first and taking a swig. 

Her father doesn’t come home that night and she and Levi share her childhood bed. There’s a few times when Petra wants to say something ridiculous like “do you want to see my cunt? I take good care of it.”

But she doesn’t. What she does is remember the way Levi’s bone thin fingers feel in her hair and how he almost tears at her throat even as he is half conscious and held fast by the devils of sleep. Like an Auruo-face with a chunk missing from his jaw and Erd-face whose two halves float close together, but never to be joined again. 

When they wake up again, Petra has no doubt that they’ll both be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> A note on vinegar: supposedly can be used to regulate particularly heavy menstruation cycles along with having some other health benefits like helping to waylay heartburn and improving digestion. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
